Semiconductor devices often include multiple layers of conductive, insulating, and semiconductive layers. Often, the desirable properties of such layers improve with the crystallinity of the layer. For example, the electron mobility and band gap of semiconductive layers improves as the crystallinity of the layer increases. Similarly, the free electron concentration of conductive layers and the electron charge displacement and electron energy recoverability of insulative or dielectric films improves as the crystallinity of these layers increases. Further, improvement to the phenomenon of piezoelectricity occurs with improvements in crystallinity of the layer. A monocrystalline piezoelectric layer exhibits greater piezoelectric effect compared to polycrystalline films of the same or similar material. Therefore, structures including this monocrystalline film are capable of producing a stronger electronic signal per amount of deformation in the film, and conversely, exhibit greater deformation per amount of electric field applied to the film.
For many years, attempts have been made to grow various monolithic thin films on a foreign substrate such as silicon (Si). To achieve optimal characteristics of the various monolithic layers, however, a monocrystalline film of high crystalline quality is desired. Attempts have been made, for example, to grow various monocrystalline layers on a substrate such as germanium, silicon, and various insulators. These attempts have generally been unsuccessful because lattice mismatches between the host crystal and the grown crystal have caused the resulting layer of monocrystalline material to be of low crystalline quality.
If a large area thin film of high quality monocrystalline material was available at low cost, a variety of semiconductor devices could advantageously be fabricated in or using that film at a low cost compared to the cost of fabricating such devices beginning with a bulk wafer of semiconductor material or in an epitaxial film of such material on a bulk wafer of semiconductor material. In addition, if a thin film of high quality monocrystalline material could be realized beginning with a bulk wafer such as a silicon wafer, an integrated device structure could be achieved that took advantage of the best properties of both the silicon and the high quality monocrystalline material. Further, if the thin film of high quality monocrystalline material were to possess piezoelectric qualities, various fields of research could benefit from a reduction in the size of piezoelectric components. Nanoengineering, Surface Acoustic Wave (SAW), Optoelectronics, and Laser Optics are but a few technologies reliant on reduced size and increased quality of piezoelectric components. Further still, piezoelectric structures can be used in conjunction with semiconductor structures, thereby providing highly integrated systems previously unknown in the art.
Accordingly, a need exists for a semiconductor structure that provides a high quality piezoelectric film or layer over a monocrystalline material and for a process for making such a structure. In other words, there is a need for providing the formation of a monocrystalline substrate that is compliant with a high quality monocrystalline material layer so that true two-dimensional growth can be achieved for the formation of quality semiconductor structures, devices and integrated circuits having grown monocrystalline film having the same crystal orientation as an underlying substrate. This monocrystalline material layer may be comprised of a semiconductor material, a compound semiconductor material, a piezoelectric material and other types of material such as metals and non-metals.